


Buzzing the Beast

by useyourlove



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-25
Updated: 2011-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/useyourlove/pseuds/useyourlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara is bored and decides to shake up the workday and a certain Commander. Set in the missing time between the Sam make-out session and Baltar's Groundbreaking Ceremony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buzzing the Beast

**Author's Note:**

> [Also posted on LJ at wartytoads.](http://wartytoads.livejournal.com/7465.html) Originally posted at [no-takebacks](http://no-takebacks.livejournal.com/233094.html?thread=12308102#t12308102).

The claxons were blaring all through CIC and everyone scrambled to their posts.

"Report!" Lee barked.

"Proximity alert! Sir, one of Galactica's Vipers is on a collision course."

"What?" He hustled over to the DRADIS station, sure that the ensign had read it wrong. A little Viper dot was zipping its way across the screen.

"Mr. Hoshi! Patch me through to that Viper."

He had the worst feeling about this.

"You're connected, sir."

He picked up the handset, paused briefly for a moment, eyes closed and collecting himself. Everyone was watching--there was little else they could do. When he put the phone to his ear a maniacal cackle filled his ears and he knew he was right.

"Starbuck, this is Pegasus actual. What are you doing, Kara?"

She laughed that resounding bell of a laugh that always made his chest feel like someone had hollowed it out with a spoon.

On DRADIS, the Viper still barrelled towards them. Sirens blared, lights flared, but Lee was already coming down off the adrenaline of battle. His hand shook on the table. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Starbuck! _Report_."

A warning bell was bleeping. From the second they heard him say her name, the equipment was more scared of the situation than anyone in CIC. This was just a joke--a little hazing between the two of them. The fact that the rest of them were involved was obviously irrelevant to anybody.

The reports merged--Pegasus and the Viper becoming one on the DRADIS screen. If the warning systems could have, it was clear they would have gone into cardiac arrest.

"STARBUCK!"

Everything suddenly quieted. She had veered away at the last second, the tiny reverberations from her jets echoing through the hull into CIC.

"Viper has cleared Pegasus. That was damn close, sir."

A crackle rang in his ear. "You awake in their, Apollo?"

He clutched at the handset.

"What _exactly_ are you trying to do?"

"Just keeping you on your toes, sir." He could hear the smile in her voice and he couldn't decide if it pissed him off or made him want to giggle. He went for pissed off. That was easier. "How'm I doin'?"

"You are _one_ step away from hack."

"Nothin' new then." The joy in her voice made him want to deck her. And kiss her. He pushed all of that down before he found his voice again.

"Do you have _any_ idea how close you came--"

"Afraid I'm gonna break your toy?" She punctuated it with another one of her ringing gleeful little laughs. He couldn't help it--his face broke into a smile.

"Aren't you on CAP?"

"Aren't I?"

"Is there any particular reason you're buzzing my Battlestar instead of running perimeter?"

The comm was full of fuzzy silence for a moment.

"I... we miss you out here, Apollo."

He was stunned for a moment.

"Starbuck," he said finally. "What was that last? There's some kind of interference on this channel."

Hoshi looked up, slightly surprised, and began fiddling with the dials on his station. Lee tried to calm him, but was caught by her voice.

"I miss you," she said, small and barely audible over the static.

"Come again, Starbuck?"

Nothing.

"Starbuck, repeat that last."

"I SAID I MISS YOU OUT HERE!" and it blasted through the whole of CIC. Hoshi looked a cross between ashamed and smug. Which was when Lee realized that everyone had been straining to hear the conversation from the beginning. All of their faces... he felt like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. Heat blossomed across his face and he knew he must be turning beet red.

"Copy that, Starbuck," he said finally. He took a deep breath, his face softening. "I miss you, too."

"How about I land my bird for engine trouble?"

"If by 'engine trouble' you mean you want to cool your jets in the Pegasus brig, you go right ahead."

Her laugh rang clear through CIC and got the rest of the crew laughing with her.

"Don't you have anything to do?" he shouted over the sound.

"Oh, _frak_ me, am I on overhead?"

"Uh, copy that, Starbuck. We read you loud and clear," his own voice cracked trying not to laugh.

The line was silent for a long time.

"HI, PEGASUS!"

Lee held up the comm and raised his hands to let them all answer.

"HI, STARBUCK!"

She laughed that laugh of hers.

"Pegasus actual, this is Starbuck out. To go do her _job_. Running a boring-ass CAP."

"Copy, Starbuck. Apollo out."

For the whole shift, his eye kept straying to the DRADIS screen and his lips kept curving just at the corner. Then he'd look down quickly, catching himself. But for the rest of the day, Commander Adama had a smile on his face.


End file.
